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My hair is so much blonder, and my nose is considerably thinner. Hell, I’m a lot thinner. I run my hands down my slim body, and I feel my bones more prominently. “What did you put in that tea?”
“Four teaspoons of sugar, just how we like it.” Allegra smiles, and I feel as if I’m smiling as well. “Now that you see we’re one and the same, we need to relive the murder together. You’ve done your job and helped me remember who did it. I’m just not strong enough yet to go back on my own. But I’ll see you again when the pages fall.”
Allegra pushes me backward into a hole. I’m falling for miles. The wind is in my hair, my limbs flail helplessly, and my stomach feels like it missed the fall completely and stayed in the cabin with Allegra.
When I hit the ground, it’s no longer the hardwood of the cabin but the floor of Connor and Allegra’s bedroom—my bedroom—in Sequoyah Hills. I recognize it. I remember everything about my real life, her real life. The real world hits me like a jolt of electricity, and I suddenly recall being Allegra. Everything in my dream was a projection of how things really are now and, at the same time, also how they were fifteen years ago.
The relationships were the same with everyone involved, despite the slightly different circumstances I experienced as Madeleine. She wasn’t a character I created. She was me, the exact person I was at twenty-five but thrust into my current life.
I remember when I landed my book editor, Sarah. I remember when my first book came out and how Connor, Mason, Garrett, and I celebrated at home with pizza, ice cream, and champagne. My brain pieces it together again. The things Graham did and said in my dream world were things Mason actually did at that age in the real world, only my name wasn’t Madeleine but Allegra. In my dream, if I’d been at Connor’s house and seen pictures of Mason when he was little, I probably would’ve gone into shock as Madeleine, because Mason would’ve looked exactly like Graham. I finally realize that’s why Connor got so emotional upon meeting Graham. It was like traveling back in time to when they first met and Mason was almost four.
Madeleine Barton. Why did I pick that alias? The answer is on the tip of my tongue—Vertigo! In Vertigo, Kim Novak played two characters who were actually the same person, Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton. I simply combined the two to make Madeleine Barton. Pretty clever.
I glance at the clock. It’s two minutes shy of three in the morning, and Connor’s out like a light in our bed. My suitcase is packed, as is my purse, and I’m dressed in a pink Gucci sweatshirt and black leggings. It’s then that I realize I’m about to die. This is my memory coming back of the night I was attacked. At last. But I’m not ready.
My printed manuscripts are on my end table with my phone, so I grab them and gather all my belongings and head down the stairs. I want to go back to the bedroom, wake Connor, and kiss him. I want to do everything differently than the first time, but I can’t. I’m being pulled by an unknown force toward the events exactly as they happened. History clearly cannot be altered. Not even here.
I step toward the hallway but cry internally. Why didn’t I kiss him goodbye the first time? Why did we grow so far apart these past five years? Why did it take nearly being killed from a head injury to make me wake up? Taking another step down the hall, I remember opening my eyes for a few seconds in the hospital, not knowing why I was there. It wasn’t a dream. It was reality.
I step toward the stairs and closer to my fate. The headaches and ringing in my ears are from the head injury and machines beeping in real life, just like Allegra told me. They’ve been playing in the background of my medically induced coma, and every once in a while, the sounds made their way into my dream and interrupted it. I remember it all now—Connor holding my hand, saying they needed me to go to sleep for a while, to heal. Then I remember slipping away and waking up as Madeleine, eating dinner with Graham as the news of Allegra Hudson’s “death” came to me via my mom.
What I don’t understand is how I lived if someone tried to kill me, and clearly, they attempted to because I have this agonizing head injury as a reminder. I wonder whether it was an accident or if they feel remorseful. Maybe I took too many pills again and relapsed. But no, I haven’t done that for years. Someone did this to me, and it’s time I learned who. Did Connor wake up and confront them? And who was charged with my attempted murder in the real world? Is there really a Detective Wentworth and a Claude Van Morrison, or did I make them up in my dream to push Madeleine forward?
My memory continues to return as I grab the knob to the front door and twist it with sorrow, because I’m unable to do anything differently than the first time, though I try my best. I step onto the porch and check all my belongings. Luggage, wallet, purse, laptop, manuscripts. Check, check, check, check, check. Then a voice calls my name from the right side of the porch—in the dark. It’s a voice I recognize, but I still jump as it catches me off-guard.
“Did you change the book, Allegra?” she asks.
“God, Mayven, you scared me half to death.” I exhale and grab my heart.
Mayven remains hidden in the shadows. “Did you change the book? Yes or no?” I’ve never heard her use that low tone before.
“No, I think it works best as a nonprofit scam. It’s juicier that way. Plus, I just love the name Raven for an antagonist. It’s so dark and sinister yet beautiful at the same time. I tried changing her name for the version I handwrote, but it just didn’t feel right.” I smile innocently. “What are you doing up so early?”
Mayven steps closer to me with one of her hands behind her back. I try to force different words from my mouth, then I try to hit her, but all I can do is wait and let things play out.
“I tried so hard, Allegra. I tried so hard after I read it to politely suggest you change her name, to change the scam plot. Don’t you understand? People will figure it all out if you leave it this way. Troy and I will be done! People will grow suspicious of the Bennett Book Foundation because everyone knows you and I are good friends. They’ll start to look into where our charitable proceeds are truly going, and I can’t allow that. Not to mention, the name Raven for the antagonist? Really? It literally rhymes with my name! All of this trouble over one little word.”
I take a step away from her and try to clear the fog in my mind. She’s telling me that I hit the nail on the head with her charity—and that I’m putting one in my own coffin as well. “But you guys aren’t doing anything illegal like that?” I ask.
Mayven drops her head to the side and raises her eyebrows.
When we hear some scuffling across the street, we turn our heads toward the road, but ultimately, we see nothing and no one.
“What are you saying, Mayven? That my plot hit too close to home?” I look to see if anyone else is around, and Mayven snatches my manuscripts with her free hand.
It makes sense. In my dream world, she tried to cover her tracks. She thought the picture of Connor and Ivy might make them look guilty, but I still believed them. So she planted the headless doll, scared Graham at the playground, and sent the threatening note about the twenty-four-hour deadline after that to try to stop me. She’s also the one who wiped Allegra’s laptop.
“Listen, Allegra, I can’t let you take these to New York. I just can’t. Oh, and by the way, I accidentally deleted the emailed copies of your manuscripts after I read them. Sorry. So these are all that’s left now, and I’m the only other person who’s read them.” She smirks, and I see a side of her I never thought I would—pure evil.
I lunge for my pages, and some fall to the ground, almost in slow motion. They cascade down like leaves falling from a tree, and when the wind hits them just right, I chase them down to the porch floor with open arms. “Why are you acting so crazy, Mayven?”
“I know you won’t understand. You’re far too virtuous. You’d have to run and tell on me and be the hero.”
I gasp as I put the pieces together from my dream and see that it matches reality. I try my best to ask her if Marcus started digging around in Troy’s records and if she put almond milk in his coffee cup somehow, but the words won’t come out of my mouth. That’s because I didn’t say them the first time around. Which means that didn’t happen in the real world at all. I created Marcus to help myself realize something, but what? I wonder.
Mayven continues, “I can’t let my whole family go down for you, Allegra. If only you’d changed the story when Fran told you to. I really thought blackmailing her would do the trick and she’d convince you to scrap it.”
I try my best to pick up the fallen pages and the fallen pieces of my life. I gather the papers and glimpse the title page of the book that saw through Mayven and Troy Bennett’s lies and deceit. I open one helpless eye and see the word typed out in big, bold letters—Wordplay.
“Getting rid of you won’t be easy. I might have to get my hands a little dirty. I’m sorry it had to be this way, Allegra. You really were a good friend.” Mayven’s voice cracks from above me as a tear drops from her face onto my arm. A sharp blow to the back of my head stings, and all I see is darkness as a car pulls up in front of my house and I tumble down the concrete stairs. I imagine it’s Troy coming to finish me off with a quick jerk of my neck.
Since this is how it really happened, maybe this time, he’ll wrap me in a garbage bag, throw me in his trunk, and dump me in a river somewhere. All I know for sure is that there isn’t one thing I can do about it as I lie here. But if that were truly the case, how did I wind up in the hospital in a coma? It has to be someone else in the real world who finds me before the Bennetts finish me off and Connor finds my dead body. But who? And how? Footsteps approach me from the street as Mayven scoots behind the bushes, where she can’t be seen.
Gentle hands are suddenly on my back and head. “Allegra, Allegra! Are you okay? Why are you lying here? What’s wrong? Oh my God, you’re bleeding!” He dials 911 and rings the doorbell five times as he yells for Connor.
It’s Lane Stone. He came back to check on me, just like he said he wished he had come back in my dream. Thank you, God! I close my eyes and rest at last, for this has been a long journey.
All the things I found creepy about Connor while I was dreaming were actually him trying to help me remember who I really am; I wish I’d seen that then. The Whitestone Inn, Remember When, even regifting me the ruby necklace he gave me for our fifth anniversary in the real world. The one that, oddly enough, was a replica of the one Madeleine Elster wore in Vertigo, when she, too, was living a double life. He knew that movie was my absolute favorite, and a replica of the necklace from the movie would’ve been a perfect gift.
In the real world, I married Connor a year after we met at my mom’s house. He adopted Mason the day after our wedding, before we even went on a honeymoon. He was a gem—no, a diamond in the rough. Just as he was in my dream. He even suggested we delay the honeymoon for a week since the wedding “hoopla,” as he called it, had kept us so busy. He didn’t want Mason to feel like we’d run off and left him right after the wedding, so we stayed.
Two years later, in 2005, Garrett was born, and our family was complete. Mason adored having a father figure and a baby brother; Lord knows he’d put up with so much estrogen from my mom and me for far too long. Those were the early years, though, before my writing took off and the busyness got out of control and my priorities shifted. I don’t completely regret my career keeping me busy—it’s who I am, who I was—but there is this thing called balance, and my life became incredibly uneven after Mom died.
When I lost Clayton so young and so suddenly, it hardened me. I’d depended on him far too much, and he was my everything. Everything I needed in a best friend and husband was wrapped up in him and him alone. When he was taken from me, I found it hard to stand on my own again. Then I had Mason depending on me, and me alone, and I wasn’t ready. So with Connor, I wanted to love him with all of my heart yet still be able to take care of myself and my children financially if something ever happened to him. I guess I overcompensated, though, to the point of almost ruining a great thing.
When Mom died and my books really took off, my fans demanded more of me, and my friends began to ask for favors and appearances almost every day. I kept saying yes. That’s when everything truly started to fall apart, not when Mayven hit me.
If I ever wake up, I hope Connor can forgive me. I hope I can see Mason and Garrett one last time, even if I don’t make it for very long. I pray for God to heal me if it’s his will, and I understand if it isn’t. I beg him to please take care of my babies and to help Connor move on with his life and find happiness. I pray that Connor won’t blame himself for the dissolution of our marriage. It was all my fault, and I want to apologize for my mistakes before I go, if that’s at all possible.
Light and shadows dance before my eyes, and I squint to make sense of them. Voices mumble softly around me, and I can’t understand them at first. “She’s awake!” I finally hear and recognize it as the sweet voice of my youngest son, Garrett.
“Shh. You’re going to give her a headache!” Mason says as if annoyed. “Mom, it’s us. Can you see me? Can you hear me?”
My eyes dart back and forth to the three pieces of my heart in human form.
“Allegra, we’re right here. It’s okay. We’re all right here.” Connor’s hands are clasping mine.